• From Daily Kos and Netroots Nation: activists from the Pretty Bird Woman House shelter speak about sexual violence against Native women and their struggle for justice. Because of jurisdictional uncertainty, the non-Native perpetrators responsible for 86% of assaults against Native women are rarely arrested or prosecuted. Video here (sorry, couldn’t get it to embed properly.)

• Politico “discovers” the pro-choice spiritual left. It’s actually a pretty savvy article. I think that it’s long past time the religious/spiritual left got some recognition as a political force–from everyone, including the spiritual left itself. Learning to approach reproductive justice from a faith-positive perspective can only help our movement. Some of us may have a hard time getting our head around this, in the context of so many decades/centuries of religiously-motivated attacks on women, sexual freedom, and reproductive rights. (I myself split from Christianity years ago, citing irreconcilable differences.) But as this article points out, the religious Right has done a very good job of hijacking God and spirituality for their own oppressive purposes, and as in many other areas of politics, the left has long allowed them to frame the discourse. Hopefully we’re now seeing the beginning of a push to reclaim it. Combined with the momentum towards framing reproductive rights as human rights, there’s a lot of space in that direction to movement-build.

• Most of the readers here have probably already seen this, but President Bush has proposed new regulations for the Department of Health and Human Services that, among other things, redefine abortion to include some forms of contraception. Under the regulations, health providers, researchers, and medical schools would only receive federal funding if they sign “written certifications” promising that they won’t discriminate against employees who would rather not perform essential reproductive health services. (Rep. Nita Lowey and family planning activists respond.) Looks like Bush is hard at work on his legacy, intent on leaving the country in as much of a mess as possible come January.

• Queen Emily, guest blogger at Questioning Transphobia, has begun a really great series on transphobic tropes. Her second post, Patriarchal Privilege, addresses transphobia in feminism. To some extent, this comes from a lack of understanding; women feel transwomen are “really” men trespassing in women’s spaces. Emily deconstructs this idea, outlining the discrimination and violence faced by trans people. As she says, “Trans people are systematically disempowered, on macro and micro levels. Why on earth does any of this sound like we’re getting monthly muffin baskets from the Patriarchy?” No kidding. The exclusionary “feminism” she calls out looks a lot to me like the operation of unexamined privilege. And like bisexual people facing monosexism, trans people fall into that interstitial space between hard and fast categories that makes them targets of prejudice from all sides–even within the LGBTQIQ community. Why is it that even among those claiming to fight for equality, there’s so often some group considered less equal than others?

–Erin Simonitch

Last week, President Bush named the recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. There are some good ones among them — Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird; and Benjamin Hicks, a civil rights pioneer. But there’s one real sleeper in there (warning: don’t have anything in your mouth while you read this or you may spit it out): Henry Hyde. Yes, he of the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal medicaid funds for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or if the woman’s life is threatened.  The same Hyde Amendment that places an enormous obstacle in the way of poor women seeking abortions in this country, and that discriminates against poor women (though the Supreme Court has said otherwise) in that federal medicaid funds cover other reproductive healthcare expenses for men and women. The same Hyde Amendment that a coalition of reproductive justice groups is currently fighting to repeal.

And for this, he gets the medal of freedom, complete with this citation from the White House:

Henry J. Hyde has served America with distinction. During his career in the House of Representatives, he was a powerful defender of life and a leading advocate for a strong national defense and for freedom around the world.

Ann at Feministing takes the words right out of my mouth:

 Because nothing says “freedom” like severely curtailing the reproductive rights of low-income women.

Hyde’s “defense of life” has meant that many women have been forced to carry pregnancies to term when they would have preferred to abort, often because they feel it’s what’s in the best interests of the child or children they already have. Or they have had to choose between buying food or paying the electric bill and paying for their abortion. Or they have been forced to consider dropping out of school to take care of a child when they would really rather graduate.

The good news is that some states provide public funding for abortions out of their own coffers. These states recognize that access to safe and legal abortion is a necessary part of a woman’s reproductive health, and of her life outside her reproduction. The bad news is that the President (et al.) think that denying this access warrants an award. And not just any award, but one that carries the name “freedom.” It would be funny if it weren’t real.

President Bush announced today his choice to head the Federal Government’s Family Planning Program:  Susan Orr. Orr, whom Bush called “very qualified” turns out to be not at all qualified for this job. Here’s why:  she vehemently opposes contraception. That’s right. The woman who will be helping shape federal policy about access to contraception doesn’t think contraception is a good idea. She thinks the Global Gag Rule is fine and dandy and that birth control is “not a medical necessity.” She even authored a charming document called “Real Women Stay Married.” And she thinks that Plan B is a “grave threat to women’s health.” Jill says it sounds like a headline from the Onion. Only it’s real life. It’s headspinning.

But it’s not surprising. Why not? Bush’s previous choice for this post was Dr. Eric Keroack, the medical director of A Woman’s Concern (a “crisis pregnancy center”), who has been intimately involved with Leslee Unruh’s Abstinence Clearinghouse and who pushes the scientifically dubious claim that women (note: only women) become unable to form loving relationships if they have sex extra- or pre-maritally because of supposed changes in brain chemistry. Again - no science here.

I’ll chalk this one up to another embarrassingly bad Bush appointee. And the Bush administration knows it. Why else would they announce her appointment on the same day as the Mukasey hearings?